1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to plastics material molds for the production of foam-filled fiber reinforced plastics material boat bodies and specifically deals with the reinforcement and sealing of such molds. The molds of this invention are especially suitable for the production of sailboat hulls having outer shells and inner bottoms sealed together around their periphery with foam plastic-filled chambers therebetween where the foam is interlocked with the walls defining the chambers by fibrous laminations having the fibers embedded in the foam and firmly interlocked with the shells.
2. Prior Art
Foam-filled hollow boat shells are known in the art as for example, in the U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,909,791; 3,531,809; and 3,435,470, French Pat. No. 1,443,919 and British Pat. No. 931,244. Longitudinal and transverse stringers between inner and outer shells of boat hulls are also known, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,956,292; British Pat. No. 966,508 and German Pat. No. 940,787. These prior art disclosures, however, deal with motorboats and their constructions are not suitable for racing type sailboats where both the keel and the deck must provide maximum stiffness and minimum weight. The prior art constructions were generally made by coating mold forms with plastics material, draping fibrous material laminations over the gel coating, and separately forming outer and inner shells thereby requiring complicated assembly and sealing procedures.